Uh oh...what do I do now?

Oversway · #1 January 27th, 2006, 02:37 PM

Suprise! But yeah, horrors are rather rare. I think it may depend on your luck and/or magic scales.

I suggest keeping a few bodyguards on your archmage to slow down any horrors until you can get off some good spells.

Endoperez · #2 January 27th, 2006, 04:04 PM

If he has Astral, and you don't want him to fight any fights any way, consider scripting him to cast Returning. That is the most exploited way of getting out of Void Gate.

shovah · #3 January 27th, 2006, 04:05 PM

what paths does your archmage have?

OG_Gleep · #4 January 27th, 2006, 04:05 PM

I didn't have access to any. My only blood mage (out of about 40 randome picks) is a sage 1 blood. I thought increasing his blood would help, as he was getting 0 slaves. I got his blood up to 3 (while he was at 2 I had to switch the robe of the magi between him and my pretender). Now he has a rod, Ring of Socery, and the thorn armor that raises blood/Nature.

I didn't realize that the rod would help more than the extra blood. Thanks for the advice. Hopefully I'll get aother blood random here shortly and I'll just stick a Rod on him.

archaeolept · #5 January 27th, 2006, 05:05 PM

give your archmage some tough bodyguards - ghosts are pretty good, or the like.

shovah · #6 January 27th, 2006, 07:06 PM

the rod basically counts as +1 blood for hunting but its cheap, you could always summon lamia queens/some blood gifted units

Ironhawk · #7 January 27th, 2006, 11:12 PM

Quote:

OG_Gleep said:
My only blood mage (out of about 40 randome picks) is a sage 1 blood. I thought increasing his blood would help, as he was getting 0 slaves.

If you are really strapped for blood hunters, start summoning Lamia Queens. They are a bit expensive for that task but they get 2 sorcery randoms so there is a good chance they will get blood. Way better chance than sages, at any rate.

And about bloodhunting, let me just list the guidelines incase you didnt know:
1) always equip your hunters with Sanguie Dousing Rods
2) only hunt in provinces with populations over 5000 (is it 5k? I forget. Maybe its 8k)
3) keep unrest at 0 (either via lowering taxes or patrolling)

Saber Cherry · #8 January 28th, 2006, 12:16 AM

I always use scouts for bloodhunting. They are cheaper than anything except cheap blood mages with Sanguine Dousing Rods. If you intend to bootstrap into bloodhunting, you can collect 50 slaves with scouts, empower a national mage with synergistic paths (like Earth, Nature, Death, or Astral), forge a SDR, and hunt with him too until he's empowered enough to do useful things. Blood hunting with non-blood-mages was reduced in efficiency in patch 2.1x, but is still quite useful, considering scouts are dirt cheap. Hunting unsuccessfully does not cause much unrest, anyway, so don't be afraid to dedicate several 3000-6000 pop provinces to blood hunting, with 4-10 scouts each. You'll need to patrol at the upper end of the range... in the base game, I often use 25 indy archers and an indy commander for patrols (or low-end Foul Spawn); in a mod that sets militia pricing to very low levels, I use militia. But bear in mind that patrolling kills population much faster than blood hunting, so only do it in a very close game, a (anticipated) short game, early in the game to accelerate the bootstrapping process, with a theme that will kill people anyway, or when you choose some combination Disorder, Sloth, Death, and Hot/Cold scales that generate little income from the populace anyway.

Incidentally, scouts are still ideal blood hunters in many cases - even since non-blood-mage efficacy was reduced - because they are stealthy. Therefore, a scout transporting valuable slaves cannot be caught (when sneaking through unpatrolled territory), and a province full of hunting scouts can be set to "hide" when a pincer attack is expected... and lastly, if blood-hunting is your sole aim, empowered scouts retain their stealth and low upkeep while suddenly becoming able to use an SDR. Since blood-hunting is most economical in provinces you expect to lose (or at least, be unable to defend) rather than in your rearmost assured-income provinces, stealth and cheapness (in the event of death due to an unexpected attack) are immensely valuable to blood-hunters.

OG_Gleep · #9 January 29th, 2006, 05:44 AM

Oh thank god. I searched all the message boards for an answer...the lack of information, coupled with the fact only immortal return questions were raised, I freaked out and jumped to post without looking in game first. First time my pretender died in any game so far. Thank god there is a "Call God" option.

Endoperez · #10 January 29th, 2006, 05:49 AM

Quote:

OG_Gleep said:
Oh thank god. I searched all the message boards for an answer...the lack of information, coupled with the fact only immortal return questions were raised, I freaked out and jumped to post without looking in game first. First time my pretender died in any game so far. Thank god there is a "Call God" option.

No need to thank him, he did it for quite selfish reasons.